My personal blog about international trade, public policy & politics, pop culture, and stuff that probably interests only me

Friday, October 28, 2011

Income Inequality Round-up

The blogosphere was a-twitter (see what I did there?) this week with debate over the Occupy Wall Street protests and income inequality. I've written a lot about this subject over the last couple years, and I particularly liked these new items on this oft-discussed issue:

AEI's Jim Pethokoukis has been blogging up a storm on income inequality over the last few days. First, he has seven great reasons why President Obama is wrong about the perils of rising inequality. Then, he follows up by explaining why income inequality is liberals' new "global warming." He had even more great stuff to say last week (here and here).

Jim's colleague Mark Perry also has an excellent post on one of the biggest reasons why most discussions of income inequality are misguided: today's 1% or 5% or 99% won't be tomorrow's. He concludes "In the discussions on income inequality and wage stagnation, we frequently hear about the 'top 1%' or the 'top 10%' or the 'bottom 99%' and the public has started to believe that those groups operate like closed private clubs that contain the exact same people or households every year. But the empirical evidence... tells a much different story of dynamic change in the labor market—people and households move up and down the earnings quintiles throughout their careers and lives. Many of today’s low-income households will rise to become tomorrow’s high-income households, and some will even eventually be in the 'top 10%' or 'top 1%.'"

NYU professor - and one of my intellectual idols - Richard Epstein explodes the head of his PBS interviewer when he explains in typical Epsteinian detail why income inequality is actually an unmitigated "good thing" (AEI's Nick Schulz has more on that fact here):

The WSJ's Mary Anastasia O'Grady has another great video explaining the real conclusions we should draw from the latest CBO study on income inequality:

Finally, courageous radio host and investment guru Peter Schiff took a video camera down to the epicenter of the Occupy movement and tried to talk some sense into the protesters about income inequality, capitalism and government. Fantastic: